Sunday, April 10, 2011

All work an no play makes Jenna a dull girl.

For the last few months, I've found myself past the point of homesick, and was getting used to the idea of just being over New York. Don't get me wrong - I think it's this great city that's unlike any other place, but I guess the best way to explain how I've been feeling is by comparing it to Gainesville. Gainesville is this quintessential college town, perfect for the time I went there, but when undergrad ends, you know that it's time to move on. I was beginning to think NY was becoming that for me, especially with school ending soon. It's very much a transition place. I never expected to live here long term. But I didn't think I'd be over it so quickly.

I just started to really miss my family, my friends. The sunshine. The beach.

Most people know how much I loathe the cold, and this past winter was especially brutal and especially long. I started to tally all the cons for NY: the dirty subway, the garbage on the sidewalk, the scary homeless people, and the general filth and pungent smells.

I kept trying to remember all the reasons why I fell in love with this city, but the cons of NY plus the pros of Florida were just beginning to be too much.

I try to maintain a balance between school and non-school life. I was really hoping that it'd be better this semester, especially since I've been considering moving afterwards, but it's tough. The program is so short and so intense that at some points, even when you spend every waking moment, eating, breathing, smelling work, you know that it's just not enough time.

We'll average about 3 or 4 hours of sleep a night, stay at school until 2AM. And who has time to eat? We get so busy we forget. So we either don't eat, or eat terribly - like dinner from a vending machine: pop tarts, peanut M&Ms, and strawberry fruit snacks to cover all major food groups.

It's that "I'll sleep when I'm dead" mentality. Admirable, but exhausting.

So that's life usually, but this weekend was.. enlightening.

Two of my friends came up, and I just love visitors, especially from home. They keep me sane. Anyways, we've been talking about this trip for quite some time, and I pretty much knew going into this weekend that staying in and doing homework wasn't going to be an option. And it seemed to be exactly what I needed.

I was trying so hard to think of all the reasons why I loved NY when I should have been experiencing it instead. The millions of things that there are to do. The restaurants. These secret little places, and the places everyone knows about. The art. The architecture. The people.

THE PEOPLE. Can't lie. People are just generally way cooler and more interesting here.

Okay, NY. I still heart you.

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